According to a recent report from Bloomberg, Ford has rehired more than 300 veteran quality inspectors after finding that the artificial intelligence tools installed at its manufacturing plants were no match for the skills and experience of human workers.
The US automaker had implemented AI into every part of its operations, including 900 AI-powered cameras designed to spot defects and supply disruptions. But Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters that the company incorrectly assumed that the technology alone would produce high-quality results.
“Artificial intelligence is a great tool, but its greatness is only as good as the information you use to train it,” Poon said, according to the report. “Historically, we have not paid as much attention as we should to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers, who have been with us through many product cycles.”
Poon said automated systems lacked the judgment that only experienced technicians have developed over decades. The returning engineers, many of whom had previously left the company, are tasked with retraining Ford’s AI tools and mentoring younger staff. “We realized that to power some of our automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence tools, we need to ensure that those tools are trained by the most experienced individuals,” he added.
The approval comes as Ford celebrates its return to the top of the 2010 JD Power Initial Quality Study of Mainstream Brands. Achieving these results required a “significant talent shake-up,” including a change in senior leadership and the return of approximately 300 engineers who “pass on the hard-earned wisdom of decades of design,” according to a company press release. Ford still expects to incur more than $1 billion in warranty and materials costs this year, but believes those costs will decline as quality measures become established.
